Personally I found the best way to win back your life is to eliminate driving. Work from home, live within walking distance of the supermarket and maybe even work. Not only does this save you time, the walking acts as a relaxation time so you feel better by the time you arrive at home.

Driving, traffic, and public transport are all sources of stress that make your life worse daily.

Personally I find the weekend long enough but work days to be too long. I'd rather shorten each day and stick to 5 days as it means I have plenty of time to cook and go out for exercise daily.

Is that not enough? Would 3 or 4 hours be better?

Maybe the problem is you need to get the distracting nonsense out of your life?

Salaried work is by far the most lenient way to make money. Any other venture: a small business, a startup, an executive position, etc is way harder and more demanding.

In any case, what would be great is for the market to offer 4 day work weeks to those who wish it at the best market price, and give 5 days to the ones that want 5 days.

I've done both and I don't believe I'd agree with making it a generalization. At best, there may be some averages and medians, but it is not a universal statement that "all salaried work is more lenient than all small business / startup work".

I've done a successful small photography business. It was way way way less stressful, more satisfying than office work, and I can only imagine how much better than e.g. Amazon warehouse work.

Salary is mainly a way to pool lots of resources and insure them for sickness, rotation, leaves, etc. It is literally the risk-averse option.

You want to compare salaried with its not-salaried version, not any salaried position vs any other non-salaried position.

Ok, but did it generate more income? How many hours did you tend to work?

Averages and medians are quite useful tools when you're analyzing something like a population.

I don't think saying that a salaried job tends to be "the most lenient way to make money" is that controversial.

Maybe you had a good run with your photography business, for many other people it is far more difficult to get a venture off the ground than to work a normal job.

Obviously you charge more to cover those, but the uncertainty/risk is on your side as a freelancer.

What skersten did is 5/7 = 71%, as if any day you work on is totally lost to you for any other purpose.

Working 4 days a week at a stable successful company isn’t the same as starting a new business so that eventually you can work 4 days a week.

Punch UP, not DOWN

Your dream of doing nothing for money is unsustainable. I have nothing against free people choosing to work less, and free people choosing to hire part timers. Just don’t stop people from working harder and getting more than you.